A LIMEY IN LA LA LAND – ONE WRITERS GURNEY PART III
The problem with mobile phones, is that as far as I know you cannot have a universal number, after all what would be the point of that when there is a kings ransom to be obtained in roaming charges. As soon as you turn on your phone abroad you can actually feel the money draining from your bank account like sand being sucked between your toes by the riptide on a sunny beach. You are charged for incoming and outgoing calls, data delivery, text, images and email forwarding. If you were stupid enough to watch a HD video download you could blow through hundreds of pounds in no time at all. As a consequence turning on my Blackberry once in the US was something that was to be reserved for emergencies only.
I had charged my Sim up with £18 before I left, and despite this reducing my charges by about 60 percent, I still had to add another £68 onto the Sim for my stay. Before you leave the UK you will also have to change your voicemail to alert people that you are in the US and also set up a voicemail on your new Sim. The first problem I encountered was that I couldn’t phone the UK from my mobile number in the States, I never resolved this problem, but it is something I’d research for my next trip. Another thing to beware of is that when you run out of credit on your Sim any incoming calls just get a number unavailable message. This might explain why I missed not only my call from Stephen but also Mr Bruckheimer!
EXT. FREEWAY – TRAVELING – DAY
My journey to Long Beach was uneventful, my Sat Nav had become bored with the whole Village People vibe and had slouched into the lazy left and right approach, so all was well. One thing I did notice was that the instructions for when to leave the freeways and to take turns arrived about a second before the exit…a situation that caused the truck drivers a great deal of fear as I swerved across in front of them.
As this problem seemed consistent with the incredible speed of my plucky Hyundai I can only presume that Mrs Sat Nav was geared towards the more pedestrian pace of a standard US driver.
EXT. LONG BEACH – VENUE HOTEL – DAY
As I pulled up outside the Hotel, looking across the sparkling blue waters of the river I reflected on why I was here…and not at the Queen Mary that was moored a few hundred yards away on the waterfront.
FLASHBACK
When I’d received my notification of the screenplay win for Rose’s War, the letter had gushed about the delights that awaited me upon my arrival. There was talk of a cash prize, certificate, a festival goody bag filled with products and discount vouchers from their sponsors as well as an all access pass for the festival as well as a meeting to talk about a possible production deal to make my script, all this with films music and art set in the historic ship, The Queen Mary.
Having received all of the literature about the festival on November 21st 2009, along with various requests to fill in questionnaires, send synopsis, bios and photographs, I eagerly awaited news of the festival and my contribution to it. It was a long wait. Originally booked to take place in December the festival had been moved to February due to “Scheduling” and their sponsors’ requests. This seemed fairly normal, as it was the first year of the festival. However as the months slid by, and my emails, phone calls and snail mail letters met with a deafening silence, it felt like maybe the Festival was something I’d imagined.
By the 2nd of February I decided to take matters into my own hands and began to track down the other screenplay winners, runner-ups and Honorary mentions in the festival. Using Facebook, Linked In and Twitter I managed to link up all the writers involved and we pooled our information. It seemed that some of the writers had all but given up on the contest as their attempts to contact anyone at the competition had failed. I contacted The Queen Mary reservations department; surely if they had a film festival starting that month they’d have noticed? Well, er no…all of my enquiries met with a baffled reaction…was this one of the first recorded occurrences of a ghost festival? I knew that the Queen Mary was supposedly haunted, so maybe it just got eaten.
Then we had a breakthrough, one of the writers Philip Sedgwick made contact by phone and managed to speak to the festival organiser. It appeared that they had had to pull out of the Queen Mary venue due to a problem with their sponsors. The festival was on! We were to meet with a producer to talk about getting our projects made, Clint Eastwood and his wife were going to be there along with the band she repped The Overtones, and more importantly we would have full access to speak to the great man…boy were we thrilled!
BACK TO PRESENT – EXT. THE MAYA HOTEL
Arriving outside the hotel I saw a man with his wife and daughter arriving in their car and instinctively knew that it was Philip Sedgwick, the only man in our team to have made contact with the elusive Festival organiser Alexa Polar. Philip was what in L.A would be called a portfolio worker, in that he juggled a successful career in Astrology with the dubious art of Screenwriting. We were both in good time for our scheduled meet with the legendary producer Dennis, I say legendary, because that usually applies to someone who vanishes into the mists of time and leaves a lasting impression…and that was certainly the case. He had no card, no profile and as was soon to be discovered no ETA.
TIME LAPSE SEQUENCE
Having spent most of our pre-flight hours sorting out times for his interviews with us, we were astonished when we a discovered he was stuck in traffic? This was pretty strange, as I’d driven from L.A with minimum problems only an hour before. It was to get even weirder. I met up with the other writers who were as much in the dark as most of the organisers as to the producers whereabouts. We headed to the check in area of the festival. I say registration area, it was a couple of tables with two bemused looking girls standing behind them. Eager to scoop up our goodie bags, festival info and prize money we headed towards it. We stood there grinning hopefully.
There was nothing on the table, apart from a few flyers for various film commissions and some actors business cards. I worked up my best Hugh Grant accent and asked if there was any program info for the three days of music, films and award ceremonies. Time literally stopped, she looked at me and was rendered speechless…I learned afterward that it was a function of the English accent and only affected a small percent of the population. I tried asking again, hinting about goodie bags, money what was on etc. Eventually she produced a piece of blank paper and asked me to write my name on it. Obviously that was what was holding the process up.
She handed us some small coloured pieces of paper approximately two by three inches in size which had a time, and a list of five or six film titles, with the momentous heading “In no specific order” We were advised that the festival information was on the internet, which could be accessed in the hotel lobby…it was a little like going to a pop concert and having to speak to the stage technicians to find out what was on. Of course the info on the internet was exactly the same as the little pieces of paper we were clutching.
In the absence of a producer to talk to we headed into the viewing room to check out some short films. As there was no information about the films or directors it was the equivalent of a creative lucky dip, and in some cases we were going to end up with the plastic wedding ring. After three or more not short enough films, we started to became aware of the ferocity of the spiky velour finish on the chair and the continuous crash of the steel handled fire doors that allowed access to the theatre and a blaze of light to disrupt the proceeding. We all agreed it was time to hit the bar. By ten o’clock in the evening we realised that our afternoon appointment to discuss the production of our short films wasn’t going to happen!
Screenwriter Michael Donald lives in Oxford, UK, is now prepared to swap anonymity for fame within the Hollywood community. His award winning thriller screenplay LOUISIANA BLOOD and animation script ROSE’S WAR are making waves and his action thriller SHADOW TRADE has recently attracted Kerry David (Cody Banks I & II, My Date With Drew, Like Dandelion Dust) as producer.
Mike also writes the best film titles in the business including STAGGERED and BLACK ICE for fellow scribes. Mike can be reached at mikedonald@touchwoodpicturesltd.com and his other news and projects can be viewed at www.touchwoodpicturesltd.com
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
A LIMEY IN LA LA LAND - ONE WRITERS GURNEY PT II
A LIMEY IN LA LA LAND – ONE WRITERS GURNEY - PT II
EXT. LAX AIRPORT - CAR HIRE DEPOT – NIGHT
Being a typical anal writer I’d hired a Satnav with a US map chip to take over with me. An actor friend of mine had assured me he went everywhere by bike and metro. But after studying the vast and complicated map of bus and train routes I decided it was too steep a learning curve. I took an airport bus to the car hire company depot. No Ford Magnolia anonymity for me, a feisty blue Hyundai compact was to be my mode of transport. I’d booked into the Holiday Inn two minutes away from the airport to make sure my sleep-deprived brain had the minimum to cope with upon arrival. I fired up the Satnav, started the car and snail like, headed for the exit.
The Satnav remained ominously silent as I edged out into the traffic. There was no turning back, huge trucks hurtled past as I desperately waited for a sign, any sign as to where to go. The one good thing about driving in the US, is that nobody drives with the same reckless devotion to speed as an English tourist in a rental desperate to get some sleep. Pretty soon most of the traffic was reduced to small specks in my rear-view mirror as I put some distance between me and the pursuing trucks…luckily there didn’t appear to be speed cameras or police cars on the roads that night. I later learned that you’d be lucky to see any police at all unless it was after a crime had actually been committed. Finally, as I sped down the highway my Satnav spoke. It wasn’t good news “Go west” she said. Now unless The Village People had taken over my Satnav it appeared that this was the American way, no more left and right, just vague geographical hints.
I headed back towards LAX, this wasn’t great, but in the absence of knowing the right way, I took to relying on The Village People to tell me when I’d gone wrong, and then try and reverse engineer my way back to the Holiday Inn. It was at this point that I discovered the main difference between the UK roads and those in L.A…size. In England when you stuff up your directions it’s an easy enough matter to do a discrete U-Turn and get back on track. Not so in L.A. Over there you’re looking at scything across three or four lanes on your side and the same on the opposite side. That can be as many as eight lanes of traffic in which you are the stupid part of the metal sandwich.
Like most animals in the wild I soon discovered the art of following the herd. I found that if I tailgated a car that was turning in the direction I wanted to go, then they would sort out lane discipline and the cryptic traffic light situation. Thus by tailgating and responding to error messages from the voice of the Village People I should end up at the Holiday Inn well before dawn!
The chance that a truckload of Mexican cleaners were booking into the same hotel as me was slim, but I clung grimly to their bumper as they tried to shake me off around the freeways of L.A. After what seemed like hours, but was only a terrifying 30 minutes, I arrived at the LAX airport Holiday Inn, conveniently hidden behind a McDonalds outlet.
Luckily that was one of the few pieces of information I’d remembered from the helpful rep at the car rental desk. “It’s easy to miss” she’d said. Never a truer word spoken. I was quite confident that with practice and my Satnav I could miss a whole state!
I booked into the hotel, quietly confident that the difficult part of my journey was over. I reached my room and gratefully surveyed my new home. I went to the window and tried to draw the curtains. Once again I entered the twilight zone. There was a thin gauze curtain, either side of which hung a faux curtain approximately eighteen inches wide, surely some sort of joke, or were the residents only able to sleep bathed in the neon of downtown L.A?
I was now so lacking in sleep that small pink elephants danced across the room and cartoon Hyenas laughed at my plight. I headed down to reception; maybe someone had upped the anti and stolen not only the soap, shampoo and mandatory hairnet, but also the curtains…after all I was in America, the land where anything was possible. The receptionist was incredibly helpful and a specialist was soon dispatched to my room to assist me.
I made small talk with Pablo and he listened politely to my confused rambling. He smiled and reached behind the gauze curtain, pulling the two hanging sticks that allowed the thick nylon blackout drapes to slide into place on either side. I slipped him a few dollars to cover my shame, collapsed into bed and slept for the first time in 24 Hrs.
INT. HOLIDAY INN – RESTAURANT – DAY
A feast of sugar based food groups was spread out before me. I could eat almost anything I wanted and either squash it into a waffle or smother it in maple syrup. The waitress was cheery and helpful and took her food seriously…and rather like a long freight train seemed to be still crossing every time I looked up.
RECEPTION
After surviving breakfast I was ready to do battle with the thorny problem of Internet access. The receptionist was once again very helpful, as were numerous guests who marveled at my lack of success in acquiring Internet access on my battered old Mac.
The in house computer geek was summoned and soon brought all of his computer savvy to bear on my unique problem. Half an hour later, still baffled, he was forced to phone a friend as he delved ever deeper into the mystic world of Internet access and my computer’s inability to play ball. An hour later, the conclusion was reached that maybe my computer had suffered a fatal blow from a baggage handler and was never going to connect again. The staff very kindly allowed me free access via their business centre and I was soon back on track.
My lack of mobile Internet access was further compounded by the mobile phone situation. This was an area I had researched in depth before leaving the UK. After all how were Stephen or Jerry going to be able to reach me while I was in L.A without a US cell number? I had opted to purchase a prepaid SIM from a company who promised me easy and cheap access to not only a UK forwarding number but also a US cell number from the comfort of my own phone. Not quite as easy as that, because this presumed you’d had the foresight to unlock your phone. This little technical feat required one to plumb the dark side of the phone business and deal with shady characters that hung out in local markets and back streets who were invariably called Ali. When Ali let me down the day before I was due to fly out, I had to find another source of unlocking, which I finally managed to do at the very last moment. Now that both my current Blackberry and my standby Palm Treo were unlocked, the world was my oyster, or so I thought. I soon realised that like a patient laid up on a hospital gurney I was to be the passenger rather than the driver on that particular journey!
Screenwriter Michael Donald lives in Oxford, UK, and is now prepared to swap anonymity for fame within the Hollywood community. His award winning thriller screenplay LOUISIANA BLOOD and animation script ROSE’S WAR are making waves while his action thriller SHADOW TRADE has recently attracted Kerry David (Cody Banks I & II, My Date With Drew, Like Dandelion Dust) as producer.
Mike also writes the best film titles in the business including STAGGERED and BLACK ICE for fellow scribes. Mike can be reached at mikedonald@touchwoodpicturesltd.com and his other news and projects can be viewed at www.touchwoodpicturesltd.com
EXT. LAX AIRPORT - CAR HIRE DEPOT – NIGHT
Being a typical anal writer I’d hired a Satnav with a US map chip to take over with me. An actor friend of mine had assured me he went everywhere by bike and metro. But after studying the vast and complicated map of bus and train routes I decided it was too steep a learning curve. I took an airport bus to the car hire company depot. No Ford Magnolia anonymity for me, a feisty blue Hyundai compact was to be my mode of transport. I’d booked into the Holiday Inn two minutes away from the airport to make sure my sleep-deprived brain had the minimum to cope with upon arrival. I fired up the Satnav, started the car and snail like, headed for the exit.
The Satnav remained ominously silent as I edged out into the traffic. There was no turning back, huge trucks hurtled past as I desperately waited for a sign, any sign as to where to go. The one good thing about driving in the US, is that nobody drives with the same reckless devotion to speed as an English tourist in a rental desperate to get some sleep. Pretty soon most of the traffic was reduced to small specks in my rear-view mirror as I put some distance between me and the pursuing trucks…luckily there didn’t appear to be speed cameras or police cars on the roads that night. I later learned that you’d be lucky to see any police at all unless it was after a crime had actually been committed. Finally, as I sped down the highway my Satnav spoke. It wasn’t good news “Go west” she said. Now unless The Village People had taken over my Satnav it appeared that this was the American way, no more left and right, just vague geographical hints.
I headed back towards LAX, this wasn’t great, but in the absence of knowing the right way, I took to relying on The Village People to tell me when I’d gone wrong, and then try and reverse engineer my way back to the Holiday Inn. It was at this point that I discovered the main difference between the UK roads and those in L.A…size. In England when you stuff up your directions it’s an easy enough matter to do a discrete U-Turn and get back on track. Not so in L.A. Over there you’re looking at scything across three or four lanes on your side and the same on the opposite side. That can be as many as eight lanes of traffic in which you are the stupid part of the metal sandwich.
Like most animals in the wild I soon discovered the art of following the herd. I found that if I tailgated a car that was turning in the direction I wanted to go, then they would sort out lane discipline and the cryptic traffic light situation. Thus by tailgating and responding to error messages from the voice of the Village People I should end up at the Holiday Inn well before dawn!
The chance that a truckload of Mexican cleaners were booking into the same hotel as me was slim, but I clung grimly to their bumper as they tried to shake me off around the freeways of L.A. After what seemed like hours, but was only a terrifying 30 minutes, I arrived at the LAX airport Holiday Inn, conveniently hidden behind a McDonalds outlet.
Luckily that was one of the few pieces of information I’d remembered from the helpful rep at the car rental desk. “It’s easy to miss” she’d said. Never a truer word spoken. I was quite confident that with practice and my Satnav I could miss a whole state!
I booked into the hotel, quietly confident that the difficult part of my journey was over. I reached my room and gratefully surveyed my new home. I went to the window and tried to draw the curtains. Once again I entered the twilight zone. There was a thin gauze curtain, either side of which hung a faux curtain approximately eighteen inches wide, surely some sort of joke, or were the residents only able to sleep bathed in the neon of downtown L.A?
I was now so lacking in sleep that small pink elephants danced across the room and cartoon Hyenas laughed at my plight. I headed down to reception; maybe someone had upped the anti and stolen not only the soap, shampoo and mandatory hairnet, but also the curtains…after all I was in America, the land where anything was possible. The receptionist was incredibly helpful and a specialist was soon dispatched to my room to assist me.
I made small talk with Pablo and he listened politely to my confused rambling. He smiled and reached behind the gauze curtain, pulling the two hanging sticks that allowed the thick nylon blackout drapes to slide into place on either side. I slipped him a few dollars to cover my shame, collapsed into bed and slept for the first time in 24 Hrs.
INT. HOLIDAY INN – RESTAURANT – DAY
A feast of sugar based food groups was spread out before me. I could eat almost anything I wanted and either squash it into a waffle or smother it in maple syrup. The waitress was cheery and helpful and took her food seriously…and rather like a long freight train seemed to be still crossing every time I looked up.
RECEPTION
After surviving breakfast I was ready to do battle with the thorny problem of Internet access. The receptionist was once again very helpful, as were numerous guests who marveled at my lack of success in acquiring Internet access on my battered old Mac.
The in house computer geek was summoned and soon brought all of his computer savvy to bear on my unique problem. Half an hour later, still baffled, he was forced to phone a friend as he delved ever deeper into the mystic world of Internet access and my computer’s inability to play ball. An hour later, the conclusion was reached that maybe my computer had suffered a fatal blow from a baggage handler and was never going to connect again. The staff very kindly allowed me free access via their business centre and I was soon back on track.
My lack of mobile Internet access was further compounded by the mobile phone situation. This was an area I had researched in depth before leaving the UK. After all how were Stephen or Jerry going to be able to reach me while I was in L.A without a US cell number? I had opted to purchase a prepaid SIM from a company who promised me easy and cheap access to not only a UK forwarding number but also a US cell number from the comfort of my own phone. Not quite as easy as that, because this presumed you’d had the foresight to unlock your phone. This little technical feat required one to plumb the dark side of the phone business and deal with shady characters that hung out in local markets and back streets who were invariably called Ali. When Ali let me down the day before I was due to fly out, I had to find another source of unlocking, which I finally managed to do at the very last moment. Now that both my current Blackberry and my standby Palm Treo were unlocked, the world was my oyster, or so I thought. I soon realised that like a patient laid up on a hospital gurney I was to be the passenger rather than the driver on that particular journey!
Screenwriter Michael Donald lives in Oxford, UK, and is now prepared to swap anonymity for fame within the Hollywood community. His award winning thriller screenplay LOUISIANA BLOOD and animation script ROSE’S WAR are making waves while his action thriller SHADOW TRADE has recently attracted Kerry David (Cody Banks I & II, My Date With Drew, Like Dandelion Dust) as producer.
Mike also writes the best film titles in the business including STAGGERED and BLACK ICE for fellow scribes. Mike can be reached at mikedonald@touchwoodpicturesltd.com and his other news and projects can be viewed at www.touchwoodpicturesltd.com
A LIMEY IN LA LA LAND - ONE WRITERS GURNEY PT I
A LIMEY IN LA LA LAND – ONE WRITERS GURNEY PT I
INT. AIRPORT - DAY
As I stood in the slow moving queue inching towards the fast check in desk, I pondered on the chain of events that started me on my journey across the Atlantic to the enchanted Kingdom of Hollywood.
FLASHBACK – INT. CAR – TRAVELING – DAY
Travelling back from a job with a Camera Operator friend of mine, the conversation soon turned to the perennial problem of actually getting a script into the right hands. Ah she said, my husband’s cousin is an executive producer at Aardman, the biggest Animation company in the UK. Which is when I realised I didn’t have an animation script. But pretty soon and idea popped into my caffeine fuelled brain and Rose’s War AKA “The St Valentine’s Day Flower Massacre” was born. Within a day the script was done, the idea had been very clear and passion did the rest – the story of a rose fighting against her human persecutors on St Valentine’s Day was a sure fire hit! Or so I thought.
TWO YEARS LATER
Having nagged and wheedled my friend into to actually making contact with her Aardmen connection, I was rewarded by the great man replying that he couldn’t open the attachment for legal reasons. It was then that I realised that even though you may only be one contact removed from a connection…you are at the end of the day, still removed.
In a moment of blind optimism, and with nothing to lose I entered Rose’s War into a film festival based in Long Beach. To my surprise it was a winner…even more surprising cash was involved, and free accommodation over the three-day festival. Could this be the excuse I needed to combine it with a trip to L.A and try and whip up some enthusiasm for my many other projects.
While I was weighing up the decision, my Script LOUISIANA BLOOD placed in a screenplay contest run by Carson Reeves on his SCRIPTSHADOW website. Carson is known in the business for spotting up and coming writing talent. The contest started with a logline, and progressed to a sample ten pages and then onto a full script. So out of a thousand entries Louisiana Blood had done well to survive. I knew that the premise of the script was solid, as the logline had attracted nearly six hundred viewings on the Moviebytes site within months. What I didn’t expect was the huge amount of interest that was to follow.
Within a few hours of the announcement requests to read Louisiana Blood were pouring in…and they weren’t just from Hollywood, but from France, Singapore, Australia and beyond. After replying to their queries, faxing release forms and attaching scripts I was exhausted…was it a sign that I should go to L.A?
THE INCITING INCIDENT
Over the St Valentine’s weekend Rose’s War and my action thriller Shadow Trade, both won their genres in the 7th I.P Screenplay competition. Three awards, an offer to produce Rose’s War and an option from a Hollywood Producer on Shadow Trade…my mind was made up, I was off to La La Land!
INT. AIRCRAFT – TRAVELLING - SLEEPLESS NIGHT
I had pondered long and hard about whether I should gear up to use my MAC on board, and after exhaustive research into plugs, power supplies and elbow room I had decided to risk the withdrawal symptoms and opt for a Macless journey. What a great decision, I didn’t even have room to open a paperback! I was reduced to watching five films back to back on the expansive 5 inch screen with the special sound through a sock option that British Airways provide at no extra cost.
As the plane droned on and the films failed to impress I promised myself I’d book a window seat on the way back, at least that way I’d skip the pleasure of getting up and down for two unrelated bladders. Further entertainment was provided by the three passengers in front who looked as if they were casting for a group part in Gangbangers III “The wasted years”. If the leader of the gang, wearing either the very latest in shabby chic, or a pair of hand me down tracksuit bottoms and a forty-year-old unwashed T-Shirt, had pushed his seat back any further, we’d have been dating. When he stood up his arms bulged with veins like tramlines and I was sure he had a Masters degree in gym-work. The effect was somewhat diluted when they all put on their pink velour neck pillows and fancy headphones, but I was in no position to mock, the bones in my neck and spine had fused together somewhere over the Atlantic.
INT. LAX AIRPORT – SECURITY
As expected, there did seem to be an air of nervousness in the land of the free. After an hour of restless progression towards the line over which you stepped at your peril, I finally got to display my passport. Having taken advantage of the high quality passport booth in my local post office I sported an over lit picture which added an extra twenty years onto my age by giving me white hair. The official looked at me and grunted something incomprehensible. I’d been warned not to try humour, and to make absolutely sure to stress that I was in L.A for pleasure and not business. There seemed to be more paranoia about me working in the US than any security issues. I smiled benignly; he barked something else at me, clearly getting annoyed.
His name was an acronym, his nationality an enigma and I’d been awake 20 hours. My head ached with an overdose of in flight entertainment, a smorgasbord of “He’s just not that into your world of lying surrogates in 27 dresses warring with the brides law abiding citizen.” So I’d failed to realise he wanted me to put my hand on the scanner. I looked around and saw other people placing their hands on the small screens at the desk. I tried to put my five fingers onto the screen and discovered what I perceived as a design fault; there was only room for four fingers…what to do with the thumb? Had I inadvertently blundered into the Yakuza line? This would certainly explain his impenetrable accent. Eventually, just before we reached a point where I thought they would shoot me to save themselves any more trouble, I placed my thumb onto the screen, squinted into the biometric eye scanner and I was through. My trip to L.A had already proved bumpy, but it soon turned out that I was really going to have to fasten my seat belt once I got into the rental depot!
Screenwriter Michael Donald lives in Oxford, UK, is now prepared to swap anonymity for fame within the Hollywood community. His award winning thriller screenplay LOUISIANA BLOOD and animation script ROSE’S WAR are making waves and his action thriller SHADOW TRADE has recently attracted Kerry David (Cody Banks I & II, My Date With Drew, Like Dandelion Dust) as producer.
Mike also writes the best film titles in the business including STAGGERED and BLACK ICE for fellow scribes. Mike can be reached at mikedonald@touchwoodpicturesltd.com and his other news and projects can be viewed at www.touchwoodpicturesltd.com
INT. AIRPORT - DAY
As I stood in the slow moving queue inching towards the fast check in desk, I pondered on the chain of events that started me on my journey across the Atlantic to the enchanted Kingdom of Hollywood.
FLASHBACK – INT. CAR – TRAVELING – DAY
Travelling back from a job with a Camera Operator friend of mine, the conversation soon turned to the perennial problem of actually getting a script into the right hands. Ah she said, my husband’s cousin is an executive producer at Aardman, the biggest Animation company in the UK. Which is when I realised I didn’t have an animation script. But pretty soon and idea popped into my caffeine fuelled brain and Rose’s War AKA “The St Valentine’s Day Flower Massacre” was born. Within a day the script was done, the idea had been very clear and passion did the rest – the story of a rose fighting against her human persecutors on St Valentine’s Day was a sure fire hit! Or so I thought.
TWO YEARS LATER
Having nagged and wheedled my friend into to actually making contact with her Aardmen connection, I was rewarded by the great man replying that he couldn’t open the attachment for legal reasons. It was then that I realised that even though you may only be one contact removed from a connection…you are at the end of the day, still removed.
In a moment of blind optimism, and with nothing to lose I entered Rose’s War into a film festival based in Long Beach. To my surprise it was a winner…even more surprising cash was involved, and free accommodation over the three-day festival. Could this be the excuse I needed to combine it with a trip to L.A and try and whip up some enthusiasm for my many other projects.
While I was weighing up the decision, my Script LOUISIANA BLOOD placed in a screenplay contest run by Carson Reeves on his SCRIPTSHADOW website. Carson is known in the business for spotting up and coming writing talent. The contest started with a logline, and progressed to a sample ten pages and then onto a full script. So out of a thousand entries Louisiana Blood had done well to survive. I knew that the premise of the script was solid, as the logline had attracted nearly six hundred viewings on the Moviebytes site within months. What I didn’t expect was the huge amount of interest that was to follow.
Within a few hours of the announcement requests to read Louisiana Blood were pouring in…and they weren’t just from Hollywood, but from France, Singapore, Australia and beyond. After replying to their queries, faxing release forms and attaching scripts I was exhausted…was it a sign that I should go to L.A?
THE INCITING INCIDENT
Over the St Valentine’s weekend Rose’s War and my action thriller Shadow Trade, both won their genres in the 7th I.P Screenplay competition. Three awards, an offer to produce Rose’s War and an option from a Hollywood Producer on Shadow Trade…my mind was made up, I was off to La La Land!
INT. AIRCRAFT – TRAVELLING - SLEEPLESS NIGHT
I had pondered long and hard about whether I should gear up to use my MAC on board, and after exhaustive research into plugs, power supplies and elbow room I had decided to risk the withdrawal symptoms and opt for a Macless journey. What a great decision, I didn’t even have room to open a paperback! I was reduced to watching five films back to back on the expansive 5 inch screen with the special sound through a sock option that British Airways provide at no extra cost.
As the plane droned on and the films failed to impress I promised myself I’d book a window seat on the way back, at least that way I’d skip the pleasure of getting up and down for two unrelated bladders. Further entertainment was provided by the three passengers in front who looked as if they were casting for a group part in Gangbangers III “The wasted years”. If the leader of the gang, wearing either the very latest in shabby chic, or a pair of hand me down tracksuit bottoms and a forty-year-old unwashed T-Shirt, had pushed his seat back any further, we’d have been dating. When he stood up his arms bulged with veins like tramlines and I was sure he had a Masters degree in gym-work. The effect was somewhat diluted when they all put on their pink velour neck pillows and fancy headphones, but I was in no position to mock, the bones in my neck and spine had fused together somewhere over the Atlantic.
INT. LAX AIRPORT – SECURITY
As expected, there did seem to be an air of nervousness in the land of the free. After an hour of restless progression towards the line over which you stepped at your peril, I finally got to display my passport. Having taken advantage of the high quality passport booth in my local post office I sported an over lit picture which added an extra twenty years onto my age by giving me white hair. The official looked at me and grunted something incomprehensible. I’d been warned not to try humour, and to make absolutely sure to stress that I was in L.A for pleasure and not business. There seemed to be more paranoia about me working in the US than any security issues. I smiled benignly; he barked something else at me, clearly getting annoyed.
His name was an acronym, his nationality an enigma and I’d been awake 20 hours. My head ached with an overdose of in flight entertainment, a smorgasbord of “He’s just not that into your world of lying surrogates in 27 dresses warring with the brides law abiding citizen.” So I’d failed to realise he wanted me to put my hand on the scanner. I looked around and saw other people placing their hands on the small screens at the desk. I tried to put my five fingers onto the screen and discovered what I perceived as a design fault; there was only room for four fingers…what to do with the thumb? Had I inadvertently blundered into the Yakuza line? This would certainly explain his impenetrable accent. Eventually, just before we reached a point where I thought they would shoot me to save themselves any more trouble, I placed my thumb onto the screen, squinted into the biometric eye scanner and I was through. My trip to L.A had already proved bumpy, but it soon turned out that I was really going to have to fasten my seat belt once I got into the rental depot!
Screenwriter Michael Donald lives in Oxford, UK, is now prepared to swap anonymity for fame within the Hollywood community. His award winning thriller screenplay LOUISIANA BLOOD and animation script ROSE’S WAR are making waves and his action thriller SHADOW TRADE has recently attracted Kerry David (Cody Banks I & II, My Date With Drew, Like Dandelion Dust) as producer.
Mike also writes the best film titles in the business including STAGGERED and BLACK ICE for fellow scribes. Mike can be reached at mikedonald@touchwoodpicturesltd.com and his other news and projects can be viewed at www.touchwoodpicturesltd.com
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Scriptshadow - Logline and script competition results
3RD PLACE
VOLATILE (Thriller) by William C. Martell (Los Angeles) - Eddy lost everything: his job, his house, his wife. Spends his final unemployment check drinking, wakes up with fresh stitches. Stolen kidney? Implanted bomb. Anonymous caller gives him six one hour tasks: Steal a car, steal a suit, steal a gun... assassinate executives from the company that fired him!
E-mail: wcmartell@scriptsecrets.net
THOUGHTS: The thing I liked most about Volatile was just how focused it was. Watching so many screenplays lose sight of what they were about was disconcerting. You always knew what the protagonist in Volatile’s motivation was. You always knew what the stakes were. It makes for an exciting ride.
2nd PLACE
KILLER PARTIES (Comedy) by Ben Bolea and Joe Hardesty (Los Angeles) - In the frozen Alaskan tundra, where the sun rarely rises, four best friends struggle against the most terrifying experience of their young lives...graduation.
E-mail: BenBolea@gmail.com
THOUGHTS: Killer Parties almost won the competition. While it wasn't the best script of the competition, it's probably the one I enjoyed the most. I love how a high school comedy is set in a place completely unfamiliar to high school comedies – Alaska. Also, this is the most authentic feeling high school script I’ve read in a long time. I think with a couple of rewrites and some guidance from the kind of manager who likes and understands the material, this could end up becoming a classic film about high school.
1ST PLACE!!!
OH NEVER, SPECTRE LEAF (Comedy) - By C. Ryan Kirkpatrick and Chad Musick - After a freak plane crash, an awkward teenage boy must enlist the help of a sexually frustrated dwarf, a smokin' hot cyborg, and an idiot in a bunny suit to defeat the Nocturnal Wench Everlasting and restore sunlight to the bizarre land of Spectre Leaf.
E-mail: flanagancrk@aol.com
THOUGHTS: It’s rare I read a script where I’m just blown away by the writer’s talent. Kirkpatrick and Musick’s are those kinds of writers. Their writing was by far the best in the competition. It reminded me a lot of when I first read Fiasco Heights. These fucking guys took a totally out there bizarre concept and did what so many writers fail to do, they made it work. From cover to cover, these two knocked it out of the park. Can’t wait to tell you all about it. Tune in on Friday for the review!
SPECIAL MENTIONS…
JUST MISSED
LOUISIANA BLOOD (thriller) by Mike Donald (Oxfordshire, UK) - When five victims of JACK THE RIPPER turn up in a swamp more than a century after their deaths, thousands of miles from the crime scene, an English Detective and a Louisiana Sheriff form an unlikely duo to unravel the ultimate conspiracy and reveal the Rippers true identity.
E-mail: touchwoodpicturesltd@hotmail.com
THOUGHTS: I was juggling between Louisiana Blood and Volatile for the Number 3 slot. The twists and turns in this script were a lot of fun, and it’s just a great premise. The only problem was that it was a little slow. If a producer or manager were to work with Mike on this, up the stakes, inject a little adrenaline, this script could sell.
VOLATILE (Thriller) by William C. Martell (Los Angeles) - Eddy lost everything: his job, his house, his wife. Spends his final unemployment check drinking, wakes up with fresh stitches. Stolen kidney? Implanted bomb. Anonymous caller gives him six one hour tasks: Steal a car, steal a suit, steal a gun... assassinate executives from the company that fired him!
E-mail: wcmartell@scriptsecrets.net
THOUGHTS: The thing I liked most about Volatile was just how focused it was. Watching so many screenplays lose sight of what they were about was disconcerting. You always knew what the protagonist in Volatile’s motivation was. You always knew what the stakes were. It makes for an exciting ride.
2nd PLACE
KILLER PARTIES (Comedy) by Ben Bolea and Joe Hardesty (Los Angeles) - In the frozen Alaskan tundra, where the sun rarely rises, four best friends struggle against the most terrifying experience of their young lives...graduation.
E-mail: BenBolea@gmail.com
THOUGHTS: Killer Parties almost won the competition. While it wasn't the best script of the competition, it's probably the one I enjoyed the most. I love how a high school comedy is set in a place completely unfamiliar to high school comedies – Alaska. Also, this is the most authentic feeling high school script I’ve read in a long time. I think with a couple of rewrites and some guidance from the kind of manager who likes and understands the material, this could end up becoming a classic film about high school.
1ST PLACE!!!
OH NEVER, SPECTRE LEAF (Comedy) - By C. Ryan Kirkpatrick and Chad Musick - After a freak plane crash, an awkward teenage boy must enlist the help of a sexually frustrated dwarf, a smokin' hot cyborg, and an idiot in a bunny suit to defeat the Nocturnal Wench Everlasting and restore sunlight to the bizarre land of Spectre Leaf.
E-mail: flanagancrk@aol.com
THOUGHTS: It’s rare I read a script where I’m just blown away by the writer’s talent. Kirkpatrick and Musick’s are those kinds of writers. Their writing was by far the best in the competition. It reminded me a lot of when I first read Fiasco Heights. These fucking guys took a totally out there bizarre concept and did what so many writers fail to do, they made it work. From cover to cover, these two knocked it out of the park. Can’t wait to tell you all about it. Tune in on Friday for the review!
SPECIAL MENTIONS…
JUST MISSED
LOUISIANA BLOOD (thriller) by Mike Donald (Oxfordshire, UK) - When five victims of JACK THE RIPPER turn up in a swamp more than a century after their deaths, thousands of miles from the crime scene, an English Detective and a Louisiana Sheriff form an unlikely duo to unravel the ultimate conspiracy and reveal the Rippers true identity.
E-mail: touchwoodpicturesltd@hotmail.com
THOUGHTS: I was juggling between Louisiana Blood and Volatile for the Number 3 slot. The twists and turns in this script were a lot of fun, and it’s just a great premise. The only problem was that it was a little slow. If a producer or manager were to work with Mike on this, up the stakes, inject a little adrenaline, this script could sell.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
A LIMEY IN LA LA LAND - ONE WRITERS GURNEY
INT. AIRPORT - DAY
As I stood in the slow moving queue inching towards the fast check in desk, I pondered on the chain of events that started me on my journey across the Atlantic to the enchanted Kingdom of Hollywood.
FLASHBACK – INT. CAR – TRAVELING – DAY
Traveling back from a job with a Camera Operator friend of mine, the conversation soon turned to the perennial problem of actually getting a script into the right hands. Ah she said, my husband’s cousin is an executive producer at Aardman, the biggest Animation company in the UK. Which is when I realised I didn’t have an animation script. But pretty soon and idea popped into my caffeine fuelled brain and Rose’s War AKA “The St Valentine’s Day Flower Massacre” was born. Within a day the script was done, the idea had been very clear and passion did the rest – the story of a rose fighting against her human persecutors on St Valentine’s Day was a sure fire hit! Or so I thought.
TWO YEARS LATER
Having nagged and wheedled my friend into to actually making contact with her Aardmen connection, I was rewarded by the great man replying that he couldn’t open the attachment for legal reasons. It was then that I realised that even though you may only be one contact removed from a connection…you are at the end of the day, still removed.
In a moment of blind optimism, and with nothing to lose I entered Rose’s War into a film festival based in Long Beach. To my surprise it was a winner…even more surprising cash was involved, and free accommodation over the three-day festival. Could this be the excuse I needed to combine it with a trip to L.A and try and whip up some enthusiasm for my many other projects.
While I was weighing up the decision, my Script LOUISIANA BLOOD placed in a screenplay contest run by Carson Reeves on his SCRIPTSHADOW website. Carson is known in the business for spotting up and coming writing talent. The contest started with a logline, and progressed to a sample ten pages and then onto a full script. So out of a thousand entries Louisiana Blood had done well to survive. I knew that the premise of the script was solid, as the logline had attracted nearly six hundred viewings on the Moviebytes site within months. What I didn’t expect was the huge amount of interest that was to follow.
Within a few hours of the announcement requests to read Louisiana Blood were pouring in…and they weren’t just from Hollywood, but from France, Singapore, Australia and beyond. After replying to their queries, faxing release forms and attaching scripts I was exhausted…was it a sign that I should go to L.A?
THE INCITING INCIDENT
Over the St Valentine’s weekend Rose’s War and my action thriller Shadow Trade, both won their genres in the 7th I.P Screenplay competition. Three awards, an offer to produce Rose’s War and an option from a Hollywood Producer on Shadow Trade…my mind was made up, I was off to La La Land!
INT. AIRCRAFT – TRAVELING - SLEEPLESS NIGHT
I had pondered long and hard about whether I should gear up to use my MAC on board, and after exhaustive research into plugs, power supplies and elbow room I had decided to risk the withdrawal symptoms and opt for a Macless journey. What a great decision, I didn’t even have room to open a paperback! I was reduced to watching five films back to back on the expansive 5 inch screen with the special sound through a sock option that British Airways provide at no extra cost.
As the plane droned on and the films failed to impress I promised myself I’d book a window seat on the way back, at least that way I’d skip the pleasure of getting up and down for two unrelated bladders. Further entertainment was provided by the three passengers in front who looked as if they were casting for a group part in Gangbangers III “The wasted years”. If the leader of the gang, wearing either the very latest in shabby chic, or a pair of hand me down tracksuit bottoms and a forty-year-old unwashed T-Shirt, had pushed his seat back any further, we’d have been dating. When he stood up his arms bulged with veins like tramlines and I was sure he had a Masters degree in gym-work. The effect was somewhat diluted when they all put on their pink velour neck pillows and fancy headphones, but I was in no position to mock, the bones in my neck and spine had fused together somewhere over the Atlantic.
INT. LAX AIRPORT – SECURITY
As expected, there did seem to be an air of nervousness in the land of the free. After an hour of restless progression towards the line over which you stepped at your peril, I finally got to display my passport. Having taken advantage of the high quality passport booth in my local post office I sported an over lit picture which added an extra twenty years onto my age by giving me white hair. The official looked at me and grunted something incomprehensible. I’d been warned not to try humour, and to make absolutely sure to stress that I was in L.A for pleasure and not business. There seemed to be more paranoia about me working in the US than any security issues. I smiled benignly; he barked something else at me, clearly getting annoyed.
His name was an acronym, his nationality an enigma and I’d been awake 20 hours. My head ached with an overdose of in flight entertainment, a smorgasbord of “He’s just not that into your world of lying surrogates in 27 dresses warring with the brides law abiding citizen.” So I’d failed to realise he wanted me to put my hand on the scanner. I looked around and saw other people placing their hands on the small screens at the desk. I tried to put my five fingers onto the screen and discovered what I perceived as a design fault; there was only room for four fingers…what to do with the thumb? Had I inadvertently blundered into the Yakuza line? This would certainly explain his impenetrable accent. Eventually, just before we reached a point where I thought they would shoot me to save themselves any more trouble, I placed my thumb onto the screen, squinted into the biometric eye scanner and I was through. My trip to L.A had already proved bumpy, but it soon turned out that I was really going to have to fasten my seatbelt once I got into the rental depot!
EXT. LAX AIRPORT - CAR HIRE DEPOT – NIGHT
Being a typical anal writer I’d hired a Satnav with a US map chip to take over with me. An actor friend of mine had assured me he went everywhere by bike and metro. But after studying the vast and complicated map of bus and train routes I decided it was too steep a learning curve. I took an airport bus to the car hire company depot. No Ford Magnolia anonymity for me, a feisty blue Hyundai compact was to be my mode of transport. I’d booked into the Holiday Inn two minutes away from the airport to make sure my sleep-deprived brain had the minimum to cope with upon arrival. I fired up the Satnav, started the car and snail like, headed for the exit.
The Satnav remained ominously silent as I edged out into the traffic. There was no turning back, huge trucks hurtled past as I desperately waited for a sign, any sign as to where to go. The one good thing about driving in the US, is that nobody drives with the same reckless devotion to speed as an English tourist in a rental desperate to get some sleep. Pretty soon most of the traffic was reduced to small specks in my rear-view mirror as I put some distance between me and the pursuing trucks…luckily there didn’t appear to be speed cameras or police cars on the roads that night. I later learned that you’d be lucky to see any police at all unless it was after a crime had actually been committed. Finally, as I sped down the highway my Satnav spoke. It wasn’t good news “Go west” she said. Now unless The Village People had taken over my Satnav it appeared that this was the American way, no more left and right, just vague geographical hints.
I headed back towards LAX, this wasn’t great, but in the absence of knowing the right way, I took to relying on The Village People to tell me when I’d gone wrong, and then try and reverse engineer my way back to the Holiday Inn. It was at this point that I discovered the main difference between the UK roads and those in L.A…size. In England when you stuff up your directions it’s an easy enough matter to do a discrete U-Turn and get back on track. Not so in L.A. Over there you’re looking at scything across three or four lanes on your side and the same on the opposite side. That can be as many as eight lanes of traffic in which you are the stupid part of the metal sandwich.
Like most animals in the wild I soon discovered the art of following the herd. I found that if I tailgated a car that was turning in the direction I wanted to go, then they would sort out lane discipline and the cryptic traffic light situation. Thus by tailgating and responding to error messages from the voice of the Village People I should end up at the Holiday Inn well before dawn!
The chance that a truckload of Mexican cleaners were booking into the same hotel as me was slim, but I clung grimly to their bumper as they tried to shake me off around the freeways of L.A. After what seemed like hours, but was only a terrifying 30 minutes, I arrived at the LAX airport Holiday Inn, conveniently hidden behind a McDonalds outlet.
Luckily that was one of the few pieces of information I’d remembered from the helpful rep at the car rental desk. “It’s easy to miss” she’d said. Never a truer word spoken. I was quite confident that with practice and my Satnav I could miss a whole state!
I booked into the hotel, quietly confident that the difficult part of my journey was over. I reached my room and gratefully surveyed my new home. I went to the window and tried to draw the curtains. Once again I entered the twilight zone. There was a thin gauze curtain, either side of which hung a faux curtain approximately eighteen inches wide, surely some sort of joke, or were the residents only able to sleep bathed in the neon of downtown L.A?
I was now so lacking in sleep that small pink elephants danced across the room and cartoon Hyenas laughed at my plight. I headed down to reception; maybe someone had upped the anti and stolen not only the soap, shampoo and mandatory hairnet, but also the curtains…after all I was in America, the land where anything was possible. The receptionist was incredibly helpful and a specialist was soon dispatched to my room to assist me.
I made small talk with Pablo and he listened politely to my confused rambling. He smiled and reached behind the gauze curtain, pulling the two hanging sticks that allowed the thick nylon blackout drapes to slide into place on either side. I slipped him a few dollars to cover my shame, collapsed into bed and slept for the first time in 24 Hrs.
INT. HOLIDAY INN – RESTAURANT – DAY
A feast of sugar based food groups was spread out before me. I could eat almost anything I wanted and either squash it into a waffle or smother it in maple syrup. The waitress was cheery and helpful and took her food seriously…and rather like a long freight train seemed to be still crossing every time I looked up.
RECEPTION
After surviving breakfast I was ready to do battle with the thorny problem of Internet access. The receptionist was once again very helpful, as were numerous guests who marveled at my lack of success in acquiring Internet access on my battered old Mac.
The in house computer geek was summoned and soon brought all of his computer savvy to bear on my unique problem. Half an hour later, still baffled, he was forced to phone a friend as he delved ever deeper into the mystic world of Internet access and my computer’s inability to play ball. An hour later, the conclusion was reached that maybe my computer had suffered a fatal blow from a baggage handler and was never going to connect again. The staff very kindly allowed me free access via their business centre and I was soon back on track.
My lack of mobile Internet access was further compounded by the mobile phone situation. This was an area I had researched in depth before leaving the UK. After all how were Stephen or Jerry going to be able to reach me while I was in L.A without a US cell number? I had opted to purchase a prepaid SIM from a company who promised me easy and cheap access to not only a UK forwarding number but also a US cell number from the comfort of my own phone. Not quite as easy as that, because this presumed you’d had the foresight to unlock your phone. This little technical feat required one to plumb the dark side of the phone business and deal with shady characters that hung out in local markets and back streets who were invariably called Ali. When Ali let me down the day before I was due to fly out, I had to find another source of unlocking, which I finally managed to do at the very last moment. Now that both my current Blackberry and my standby Palm Treo were unlocked, the world was my oyster, or so I thought. I soon realised that like a patient laid up on a hospital gurney I was to be the passenger rather than the driver on that particular journey!
Screenwriter Michael Donald lives in Oxford, UK, is now prepared to swap anonymity for fame within the Hollywood community. His award winning thriller screenplay LOUISIANA BLOOD and animation script ROSE’S WAR are making waves and his action thriller SHADOW TRADE has recently attracted Kerry David (Cody Banks I & II, My Date With Drew, Like Dandelion Dust) as producer.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Louisiana Blood
Hi All,
Happy I made the top 100, it's taken forever to hone this logline as it is such a multi stranded screenplay. I post my script samples on Moviebytes and my loglines, (http://www.moviebytes.com/ws/WinningScripts.cfm?ScriptID=6382&CFID=7927630&CFTOKEN=92354616) and found this really useful in seeing which loglines work. Louisiana Blood received over 200 hits and 10 downloads within a few weeks, which was 100% higher than most of my other scripts. A few people on this board have said they'd like to see this film...so would I. At a quick scan of the loglines ALIEN DIARYS appealed to my mind. Be interesting to see if the various scripts live up to our loglines. Best of luck to all of those in the competition, and look forwards to seeing the next round. Good luck to all!
Happy I made the top 100, it's taken forever to hone this logline as it is such a multi stranded screenplay. I post my script samples on Moviebytes and my loglines, (http://www.moviebytes.com/ws/WinningScripts.cfm?ScriptID=6382&CFID=7927630&CFTOKEN=92354616) and found this really useful in seeing which loglines work. Louisiana Blood received over 200 hits and 10 downloads within a few weeks, which was 100% higher than most of my other scripts. A few people on this board have said they'd like to see this film...so would I. At a quick scan of the loglines ALIEN DIARYS appealed to my mind. Be interesting to see if the various scripts live up to our loglines. Best of luck to all of those in the competition, and look forwards to seeing the next round. Good luck to all!
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